Winnipeg crime news — the former dean of the University of Manitoba’s law school, who vanished overseas after allegedly blowing more than $600,000 of university money on private club dinners and Ivy League résumé-padding, has been arrested in France and is now fighting extradition back to Canada.
By Maplestime News Desk | Winnipeg, Manitoba | September 23, 2026
Sources: CTV News Winnipeg, Winnipeg Free Press | Last updated: September 23, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Jonathan Black-Branch, 64, ex-dean of U of M’s Robson Hall (2016–2020), was arrested in France and faces extradition to Canada.
- A Canada-wide warrant was issued March 30 on a charge of fraud over $5,000, Winnipeg police confirm.
- A Manitoba court ordered him in May 2025 to repay $682,449.41 in misspent university funds, plus interest and costs.
- He has been disbarred twice — in Manitoba and in England and Wales, where a tribunal called his conduct “blatant and sustained dishonesty.”
The Arrest
Winnipeg police spokesperson Const. Stephen Spencer confirmed the arrest, CTV Winnipeg reported Tuesday, and said extradition proceedings are underway. Black-Branch’s case is now before French courts, which will decide whether he is sent back to face the fraud charge in Canada.
The arrest ends years of not knowing where he was. After his employment was terminated in July 2020, Black-Branch left the country. Court documents filed in 2024 listed his last known address as Oxford, England, and suggested he may have been living in Switzerland. The university even hired a private investigator to track him down.
The $682,449.41 Judgment
The University of Manitoba sued its former dean in the summer of 2024 — four years after his five-year contract was cut short. Black-Branch never acknowledged or defended the claim, and on May 2, 2025, the Manitoba Court of King’s Bench handed the university a default judgment: $682,449.41, plus interest at three per cent a year and legal costs.
“Accountability is very important to the university and (U of M) intends to pursue all available collection remedies to secure payment of the judgment,” a university spokesperson said after the ruling.
A Trail of Misspent Money
It started with a whistleblower complaint. An internal university investigation found that the man running Robson Hall was treating public money like a personal expense account — pricey meals at the members-only Manitoba Club, accommodation, travel, and more than $518,000 spent on professional development programs between December 2017 and July 2019 at institutions including Harvard University and the University of Cambridge.
Those findings went to the Law Society of Manitoba. After a months-long hearing in 2023, the society found Black-Branch guilty of professional misconduct, disbarred him in February 2024, and fined him $36,000. Earlier this year, the Bar Standards Board for England and Wales disbarred him a second time, ruling there was “no doubt the respondent’s actions amount to blatant and sustained dishonesty.”
There was even a brief, strange coda: in August 2020, while he was already overseas, the University of Southampton in the U.K. announced Black-Branch as the new head of its law school. Days later, it reversed course and said it would no longer be hiring him.
What’s Next
French courts will now weigh Canada’s extradition request. If he is returned, Black-Branch will face the fraud over $5,000 charge in a Winnipeg courtroom — the first time he would answer criminally for a scandal that has already cost him two law licences and a $682,000 court judgment.
Maplestime will provide updates on the Black-Branch extradition case as court proceedings develop.
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After six years on the run from a $682,000 judgment, is this finally the moment accountability catches up with Jonathan Black-Branch — or will extradition turn into another long delay? Tell us in the comments. And share this with every Manitoban who paid into the university he allegedly looted.
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